President signs Patriot Act extension

Friday

May 27, 2011 at 12:01 AMMay 27, 2011 at 12:30 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11, 2001, powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

“It’s an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” Obama said today after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.

Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on yesterday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

The Senate voted 72-23 for the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities. The House passed the measure 250-153 on an evening vote.

A short-term expiration would not have interrupted ongoing operations but would have barred the government from seeking warrants for new investigations.

Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who saw the terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights. Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government’s ability to monitor individual actions.

The measure would add four years to the legal life of roving wiretaps, authorized for a person rather than a communications line or device; court-ordered searches of business records; and surveillance of non-American “lone wolf” suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups.

The roving wiretaps and access to business records are small parts of the USA Patriot Act enacted after the 9/11 attacks. But unlike most of the act, those provisions must be renewed periodically because of concerns they could be used to violate privacy rights. The same applies to the “lone wolf” provision, which was part of a 2004 intelligence law.

Paul argued that in the rush to meet the terrorist threat in 2001, Congress enacted a Patriot Act that tramples on individual liberties. He had backing from liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who contend the law gives the government authority to spy on innocent citizens.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he voted for the act in 2001 “while ground zero was still burning.” But “I soon realized it gave too much power to government without enough judicial and congressional oversight.”

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the provision on collecting business records can expose law-abiding citizens to government scrutiny. “If we cannot limit investigations to terrorism or other nefarious activities, where do they end?” he asked.

“The Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans’ privacy and violate their constitutional rights,” said Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office.

Still, coming just a month after intelligence and military forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, there was little appetite for tampering with the terrorism-fighting tools. These tools, said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, “have kept us safe for nearly a decade, and Americans today should be relieved and reassured to know that these programs will continue.”

Intelligence officials have denied improper use of surveillance tools, and this week both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent letters to congressional leaders warning of serious national security consequences if the provisions were allowed to lapse.

The Obama administration said that without the three authorities, the FBI might not be able to obtain information on terrorist plotting inside the United States and that a terrorist who communicates using different cellphones and email accounts could escape timely surveillance. “When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country undetected,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday. He warned that Paul, by blocking swift passage of the bill, “is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them.”

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